Organized Gangs
Hallsworth and Young (2005) describe an organized gang as a group of individuals for whom involvement in crime is for personal gain (mostly financial, though could be otherwise, sexual gratification as with pedophile rings). For most, crime is their 'occupation'. These groups operate almost exclusively in the grey and illegal marketplace where market transactions are unregulated by the law.
Transnational organized crime groups may be involved in crimes ranging from drug trafficking, arms trafficking, art theft, human trafficking, contract killing, kidnapping, people smuggling, prostitution, piracy, counterfeiting, identity theft, loan sharking, money laundering, extortion, murder, and illegal gambling, to acts of terrorism, to political assassination. The complexity and seriousness of the crimes committed by global crime groups pose a threat not only to law enforcement but to democracy and legitimate economic development as well.
There are numerous organized crime groups and they can be found in the majority of small to medium sized cities at varying degrees of size and organization. All large cities will house some kind of organized crime group. A further distinction could be made with what are often termed organized crime syndicates.
There are a number of widely known crime organizations as such whose operations span the world. Perhaps the most famous are the American Mafia (often portrayed in New York mob movies), the Irish Mob, the Chinese Triad Society, the Japanese Yakuza, the Sicilian Mafia and the Russian Mafia. Other large cities also play host to unique types of organized criminals. For example, London's East End is home to a number of traditional crime families, and was the home of the infamous Kray Twins, and Boston's Irish Mob was portrayed in the Martin Scorsese film The Departed. Recently, Chicago's Folk Nation has broken out from a street gang into international business and is thought by many to be the newest entity of the organized crime world.
Read more about this topic: Gangs In The United States
Famous quotes containing the words organized and/or gangs:
“I don’t have any doubts that there will be a place for progressive white people in this country in the future. I think the paranoia common among white people is very unfounded. I have always organized my life so that I could focus on political work. That’s all I want to do, and that’s all that makes me happy.”
—Hettie V., South African white anti-apartheid activist and feminist. As quoted in Lives of Courage, ch. 21, by Diana E. H. Russell (1989)
“The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)